st. john hotel: london

Please excuse the hopping around this month. Someone just complained that they thought this blog was supposed to be only about Rome, and felt like they had stumbled on the wrong page by accident, since there were posts about Paris and Barcelona. Well…yes, the blog is called ‘Elizabeth Minchilli in Rome’. And I do claim to write about the ‘good stuff in Italy’. But when I manage to get out of the boot, I like to report on the good things I saw/ate/did in other places.

So I hope you’ll put up with my wanderings. Actually, I hope you’ll do more than that. My intention is that you will actually enjoy my trip reports as much as I enjoy the trips.

And so…on to London. I was up there last weekend visiting my daughter, Sophie, who is at University. Even though it’s easy enough for me to fly up for a visit, on a cheap flight, I somehow managed not to go the entire year. Sophie came back home so often, it was hard to fit a trip in.

One thing Sophie wanted to do during my visit was go to the theater, something she had never done in London. So we booked tickets to Warhorse for Monday.

And this being Sophie and me, the next item to arrange was dinner.  Going to the theatre often means forgoing dinner, or having it too late. Although I had a long list of places I wanted to try finding something that was a) open on Monday, b) open for pre-theater dinner and c) close enough to the theaters wasn’t so easy.

The newly opened St. John Hotel fit all the requirements. It was no problem at all getting a reservation for 5:30 (don’t worry, we didn’t eat lunch that day so it was more like a really really late lunch, than a embarrassingly early dinner) and the place was a ten minute walk from the theatre.

Just in case you’ve been living in another world the past 15 years, the original St. John Restaurant was opened by Trevor Gulliver and Fergus Henderson (he of Nose to Tail Eating fame) in 1994. They then went on to open St. John Bread & Wine in 2003. Both of these groundbreaking destination restaurants are located far off most people’s beaten track. The first in near the former Smithfield market and the second in Spitalfields.

Lucky for us the team just opened St. John Hotel where – as they themselves say – nose-to-tail eating becomes ‘from table to bed.’

We just focussed on the restaurant part, of course.

The entire building (formerly old fashioned seafood restaurant Manzi’s) has been completely redone. After walking through a very hot and steamy Chinatown, we were ushered into the bright white oasis of the dining room. There was something almost ship like about the entire space.

Not that big, one side of the dining room is completely given over to an open kitchen. We were close enough to hear the chef going over the specials of the day with the staff, so by the time they took our order we knew exactly where we were going.

As you can imagine, it would have been very easy to go meat happy here, but since we were headed to the theatre , we didn’t want to completely pig out (no pun intended).

Sophie was particularly restrained and ordered Asparagus & Hot Butter to start. Using her fingers to pick up a perfectly cooked spear, she dunked it in butter and then in salt, before chomping down. “How do they make asparagus taste so good?” By doing almost nothing to the freshest, best organic asparagus there is.

I went slightly more piggy, and got the Brawn & Radishes. Brawn is a headcheese type of terrine: very full of chunks and bits and pieces. It was gelatinous, salty and rich, and paired perfectly with the watercress and radish salad, dressed in a mustardy vinaigrette.

Since Sophie had been so abstemious in her first course, she went right for the roast lamb next. Served atop a bed of beet salad, the roast was fat and juicy, cooked till just pink, the meat juices melding with the beet juices to form the perfect sauce.

I couldn’t resist the peas and artichokes as my main. It was almost like an English version of vignarola, but minus the fave, plus tons of mint. It was showered with a cloud of grated Berkswell, a sheep’s milk cheese, which is what turned it from a side dish to a main course.

And while all the St. Johns are known for their meat, their side dishes are always as delicious. We went for two: cucumber and watercress salads. 

While I love the rougher atmosphere of the other two St. John restaurants, the tranquil elegance of the St. John Hotel was the perfect calm in the heart of Leicester Square, where it’s near impossible to find a good place to eat. I wish I had had a chance to see the rooms in the hotel above, but still, I’m not so sure I’d like to sleep in this neighborhood. That said, I’ll certainly be coming back to the restaurant to do more eating.

PS: We made it to Warhorse in plenty of time. It was fantastic, go see it if you can.












St. John Hotel
1 Leicester Street, London
+44 (0) 203 301 8069